Page 120 of Cruel Demands

His thumb brushes the corner of my mouth. The contact is almost nothing. My entire body tightens. I feel the touch everywhere.

Mikhail leans closer. He stops before our mouths touch. My body betrays me again, leaning the smallest distance toward him. Mikhail’s mouth nearly touches mine when he answers. “Then why are you stepping toward me?”

I look down.

My hand is gripping the front of his coat.

30

MIKHAIL

Her fist is closed around the front of my coat.

Taylor looks down at it as if the hand belongs to someone else. For one second, neither of us moves.

I expected the recording to make her admit the truth. I was expecting to have that satisfaction, to be able to pick her up and ravish her. Instead, she’s in front of me with a vulnerability that I did not expect from her. Maybe I should have after she ran from my home. Maybe a man who was not half monster would have expected it.

Maybe some part of me hoped the monster half was what she liked about me, was what she was touching herself to that night. Maybe that’s what she’s afraid of. Maybe it’s everything.

Her bottom lip is wobbling, and her fist is closing around the front of my coat like it’s a lifeline. She drops her forehead to my chest. Fuck. She’s beautiful, golden and warm, and I want her. I want to devour her from the outside in. Or the inside out. But I want her to want it. She has walked to me. She has grabbed me. She wants me. I need her to say it. I need her to stop being ashamed and just say it.

“Look at me,” I say.

Her chin lifts slowly. Her cheeks are flushed. Her breathing is uneven. She’s angry, humiliated, frightened by what she wants.

I know fear. I know how to use it. I will not use hers.

My lips are still close enough to hers that I can feel the flutter of her breath. “If you want me to leave,” I say, “open your hand.”

Her fingers tighten against my coat. It is enough.

I close my eyes. “Just say it, Taylor. You will feel so much better.”

“You always need to be obeyed,” she groans. “It’s always about power with you.”

“Not this time,” I whisper. “I want to ravish you so badly, but it is no fun if you do not want it too.”

“You already know the truth.”

It’s agony, her breath inside my mouth. I place my hands on her collarbones so that I can feel her blood beneath her skin. She’s clammy from holding back. “What did you mean by ‘it’s yours’? What is mine?”

She hisses, and her lips part even further. She groans, “My pussy.”

I can’t stand it any longer. I slide my hands up her neck and grip her jaw, trail my hand up the base of her skull and grip her hair. I use my mouth to open her lips even wider and our tongues touch. “And is it still mine?” I growl.

“Yes,” she whispers.

The word breaks something inside me. I kiss her.

There is nothing restrained in the way she answers. Her free hand catches at my shoulder, and she rises onto her toes, pressing herself against me as though she has spent days fighting the momentum that brings her here.

Perhaps she has. I cup the back of her head and deepen the kiss. Her fingers clutch harder at my coat. “Tell me again,” I say.

Her eyes are unfocused. “What?”

“That you want this.”

She stiffens slightly. I feel the change and release her immediately. Her hands remain on me. Her face burns brighter. I touch her cheek with the back of my fingers. She lets me.